


Winter Storm, Summer Heat

by rainphee



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: (and all that jazz), (extremely loosely), (it’s literally all i write why am i like this), Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Logic, Kidnapping, M/M, Seelie Court, True Love’s Kiss, Unseelie Court, loosely based off hans christian andersen’s the snow queen, nezumi can do magic, shion is half blind, title and/or tags may change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26657122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainphee/pseuds/rainphee
Summary: Every year, on the coldest day of the coldest month, when the sun dips below the horizon so long that she does not reappear for a day of night, the Winter King walks through the world.Shion is chosen as one of the King’s Children, to become an Unseelie through His blessing- only to be saved by a child who is already claimed, and set free of the fae. But years later, when Nezumi comes back into his life, Shion will have to face the wild again for a chance to bring him home.
Relationships: Nezumi/Shion (No. 6)
Comments: 41
Kudos: 18





	1. THE NEWLING WINTER

Every year, on the coldest day of the coldest month, when the sun dipped below the horizon so long that she did not reappear for a day of night, the Winter King walked through the world.

He wore a cloak of living ermine and His footsteps were hoarfrost, sinking into the earth and nipping at the necks of the animals that slumbered there. Cold followed Him in an eternal train, His breath ever-fogging under the light of distant stars. Underneath the heavy crown of ice, His head was that of an aged snow leopard, snowy eyes smooth as marbles glinting in His brightness. He would have scorched the earth had His core not been so cold.

In one hand, a ring of frost-laced stone, and attached to that ring were the chains of the Winter King’s children.

Draped in the silver-white gauze of the King, they followed Him wherever He went, bodies accustomed to the chill. The younger ones cried as they were dragged by their throats, stone collars pulling at fragile necks, only to find that their tears froze like diamonds on their cheeks.

Twelve human children, as it was every year. Twelve children to welcome a thirteenth into their midst, and for the oldest of them to take the Winter King’s kiss at the end of the solstice and ascend to true Faerie in His Frost Court. Each of them had hair white as snow, and eyes as red as blood. The marks of the blessing of Winter.

Except for one.

Nezumi was the youngest of the Winter King’s children, picked up just last solstice, and his feet still burned on the slick ice left behind by the Winter King’s silent footsteps. His hair still hung raven-black around his neck, his eyes still gleamed silver in the brightness of his master’s form. Nezumi alone remained.

At his neck, the Mark of the Wasp burned every time the collar around his throat pressed against it. It was the only thing keeping him from succumbing to the chill, the thread of Summer in the mark keeping the cold at bay. The one on his neck was the last one he had. Once he had more, but...

Nezumi choked briefly as the Winter King drew to a halt, twisting His hand imperceptibly to stop his following. He stood before a house, alone in the snowy night, its windows glowing only dully. Nezumi’s heart fell to his stomach. This place was isolated, small, a humble village that needed as many people as it could get.

But the Winter King had made His choice, and the people here did not know how to deny His will.

“ _ I bring us a newling, _ ” the Winter King said, and out of the swirling flurries, a pair of spectral, lithe figures took the chain-ring when He let it fall. No hope for escape there. Nezumi felt himself tense, drawn tight as a bowstring.

As the Winter King approached the humble cottage, icicles, deadly sharp, formed on its overhang. The snow howled even fiercer around His form and piled up, thicker here than anywhere else, blockading the people inside. He passed through the walls like smoke.

When He emerged, He held a figure in His arms, unconscious and draped in the sparkling, painful robes of His children. The ermine on His cloak twisted in a smooth patchwork, dozens of tiny eyes watching the body their king carried. The children watched Him return, a chorus of silent faces, and Nezumi bit the inside of his mouth to keep himself from screaming in apprehension.

There was a boy in the arms of the Winter King, and the moment He laid him gently in the snow, his eyes snapped open.

He had a soft face, this boy, a soft face and soft hair and delicate skin. Nezumi watched the boy’s eyes flick from the scorching gaze of the Winter King to the assorted crowd of snow-touched children, fear plain in his gaze. He said nothing.

“ _ I have chosen you, newling, to be of the Frost Court, _ ” the Winter King said, in His voice like snapping ice floes and the distant glaciers of the north. “ _ Stand and take your snow mantle _ .”

The boy’s hair began to go white, and that was when he decided to scream.

It was not a scream of pain or suffering, but something more- something primal and alive, something calling out to the wild places that the Faerie did not fit in, the places where humans eschewed but were always meant to tread. The boy screamed, a deep howl, and Nezumi couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe, couldn't think, couldn’t hear- all he could see was the boy, and all he could comprehend was the loneliness of his cry.

It startled the attendants holding the children. One of them flinched, dropping the ring on the ground; Nezumi’s chain hit it and he heard something  _ crack _ . The boy began to stand, his howl petering out, eyes going red and wide with terror. The Mark of the Wasp was smoldering on Nezumi’s skin.

_ Remember who you are, Song-Child.  _

Nezumi made a decision.

He grabbed the boy’s hand- already going cold- and  _ pulled _ . The stone chain shattered into spellwoven fragments, cracked from hitting the earth too hard, faerie and child alike reeled back from the cloud of shrapnel. Only the Winter King Himself did not shy away, blank eyes trained on the two, simmering with rage.

The boy was gasping in Nezumi’s grasp like a gutted fish, but he wasted no time. He ran, and ran, and ran, and it didn’t take long for the boy to catch his drift and start running too. The snow was thick around their feet, the blizzard harsh, but Nezumi had spent long enough slipping through snowflakes that he had learned at least something about wandering through winter.

Throughout, they did not let go of the others' hand.

Nothing followed- or if it did, they could not see it. But the sound crawled down Nezumi’s spine as he refused to look back: the Winter King’s low, cracking howl, refracted off snowflakes to bounce around from every angle. Each sound could be His body approaching, each shape in the snowstorm could be His imperious silhouette. The Frost Court could hide in any fragment of ice.

The boy gasped but did not stop, and Nezumi put his head down, and kept running.


	2. A THREAD OF SUMMER

The snow tore with windy claws at Shion’s skin, ripping the faint breath from his lungs as he ran. The other boy- the one who arrived with the Winter King, all chained in stone- didn’t let go of his hand, and through his muddle of confusion and pain, Shion was grateful.

He had heard of the Winter King, of course. Everyone had: He was the Faerie of the cold and bright, lord of the Frost Court and the Unseelie. His countenance blinded, His heart as icy as the season he ruled. The only thing that could challenge Him was the Summer Queen, but She could never touch Him. They spent their days in an endless, unseen dance, forced apart through universal magnetism.

Being taken by the Winter King to be one of the Frost Court, however? Shion never thought it could happen to him. He was small, shy, prone to daydreaming and careful thought. He was unremarkable. He was nothing the King of the Faeries would ever be interested in.

_ It could never happen to me, until it did. _

Ice lanced through his veins again, wrenching a strangled cry from Shion’s throat as his hair continued to go white. His foot caught on something buried in the snow, and the other boy’s hand slipped from his grip as he fell, landing hard in a snowdrift. The pain was unbearable; it made starbursts on the inside of his eyelids, white and burning cold. He curled up and whimpered pitifully.

“We can’t stop now,” came a voice. Shion opened up a tearful eye to see the other boy, standing over him, breathing heavily. His dark hair blew in the bitter wind. “We have to keep going. He could be anywhere.”

As if punctuating his point, a low howl sounded in the distance. Shion couldn’t tell if it was the Winter King Himself or a blown horn, wielded by the hunters of the Frost Court. The sound sent primal fear down his spine; he scrabbled vainly in an effort to get up, but the cold magic in his heart sent another bolt of pain through him and Shion knew that here he was going to stay.

“Can’t-“ he gasped, words hard to choke out. “Pain- too cold-“

“We  _ have  _ to!” 

“Ca-  _ haaahn- n’t- _ “

Another low howl, and the snowflakes shook. The boy snapped to a crouch over Shion’s trembling form, the warmth of his close proximity bringing a sudden cessation of the pain. He managed to reach up and pull him closer, fist balled in the boy’s shimmering winter garb; if the boy cared, he did not show it.

“I can help you,” the boy hissed. Shion’s vision was glazed over with tears, but he tried, desperately, to look up at him. Even with his impaired vision, he could see the fear in the boy’s eyes, plain as the fear in his own heart. “I can save you, but it’ll hurt. It’ll be the worst pain you’ve ever felt, but you’ll live. Do you understand? The Winter King will never touch you again.”

_ Never again. Never again. _

“ _ Please, _ ” he gasped, just as the ice reached a stranglehold on his heart.

The boy spit out a word alien to Shion, but his tone meant it could only be a curse. Distantly, the wild howls and screams were getting higher in pitch, stronger in voice. They were being hunted, two boys alone in the storm.

Quietly, the boy hovering over Shion reached up and touched the back of his neck, slipping his fingers under the Winter King’s collar still hanging on his throat. Then, he took his other hand, placing two fingers on Shion’s forehead, and started to sing.

The moment the first note rung out, the world stopped around them. Ice crystals hung suspended in midair, smeared by Shion’s teary eyes, and the howling of the Winter King was replaced with the strident buzzing of millions of swarming insects. It was the sound of distant summer, of the cries of the warm and dark- like the warm and dark of the boy who suddenly held Shion’s life in the palms of his hands.

And then the pain began.

It ripped through him like molten stone, a path of avenging fire through his skin, and Shion  _ screamed _ . The Winter King’s pain was killing him, but this burnt out the agony from before with its own brand of anguish, the biting sting of countless arachnids tearing him to shreds and making him anew. He was caught between sleep and wake, between existence and death, between whole and empty, each part of his existence being scattered to the ashes and rising from the dirt.

The final thing he felt before he woke up was a single line of pain, running from his face to his legs, searing out the cold and replacing it with warm.

And then he was awake, and  _ alive _ , gasping as new air flooded into his lungs. He straightened immediately, the other boy reeling backwards, and coughed so hard his throat instantly tore inside, spitting up red. His heart beat strongly in his chest, his veins unimpeded by ice. Shion was  _ alive. _

“It worked,” the boy whispered. He looked tired, more tired than he had been before. “Strong boy.”

“Thank you,” Shion croaked. His entire body felt stripped raw. “I- I can’t see. I can’t see?”

It was true- the right side of his vision was impaired, like something was forcing his eye shut. He blinked, but it didn’t go away, and he started to hyperventilate again, fearing the worst.

“Don’t lose it now, strong boy,” the other boy said, dragging himself to his feet. “You’re fine. The wasp- it burned the winter out of you, but it left a mark too. I’m sorry. I had to.”

Yet another howl, not at all so distant. They both tensed.

“You’ll see,” the other boy said. His eyes darted from drift to drift, ready to leave, body drawn tight and fearful. He was a tiny, weak predator alone in the white. “Go home. Wear iron always, bless your doorframes. You are not as human as you were before. And most of all, try to forget you ever saw Him.”

“Wait,” Shion cried, just as the boy took his first step away. “I’m- I’m Shion. Please, at least, tell me your name.”

As soon as his eyes met Shion’s, he knew he was going to remember them for the rest of time. He could be wizened and old, and his memories slipping like water from his hands, but he would always remember the way the boy’s eyes glinted silver in the snow.

“Nezumi,” he said. It had the finality of a pact. Shion shivered.

And then Nezumi was gone, between the snowflakes, and Shion was alone; but he was also alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what if you were taken by the winter king but then nezumi said. bugs


	3. THE BAKER, THE MAIDEN AND THE WITCH

“Shion! Did you get the blackberries?”

Although not loud, the cry startled Shion, bent over in a tangle of brambles. A berry in his hands was crushed by an involuntary twitch, dyeing his fingertips red; he sighed and wiped the juice off on his pant legs. The basket was nearly full anyway, and the sun was beginning to set. He may as well go in now.

“Yes, mother,” he replied, hefting the basket up and shooing away a curious bee with one hand. It was autumn, and every animal was aware of the precious little time they had before winter stretched His hand over the land, investigating and collecting and eating with impunity the bounties grown over the summer. Shion and his village were no different.

It had been six years since Shion had escaped the grasp of the Winter King, on that day so long ago, when the frost got into his bones. That night, his mother had woken to find her son’s bed empty; upon rushing out to find him, she nearly fell over his sleeping form tucked into a drift outside their front door. The snow had piled around them in the night, but never covered Shion. It made a cup around him, and threatened to swallow him whole.

The blessing of the Summer Queen had saved Shion’s life, but it had left its own mark- one painfully visible. The rope of scar tissue from the wasp’s bite was a permanent reminder of what he had lived through, and almost entirely forced shut his right eye, impairing his vision. 

As soon as Karan rescued her son from the blizzard, the village rejected them. He was too different, too cursed, his hair white and his eyes red and his skin marred with waspscar. Shion knew what they called him, behind his back, in quiet hissing whispers.

_ Changeling. Faerie child. Boy-shaped monster. _

He had long ago stopped going into the village.

Nudging open the door with his hip, Shion was met with a comfortably warm blast of air from inside the house. A fire was cheerily crackling in their hearth, warming up the wall-set oven above it and sparking in between lances of late-day sunlight that fell through wide windows. On her flour-dusted workbench, Karan looked up from kneading dough.

“Thank you, honey,” she said, brushing off her hands with a rag and crossing the room to take the basket from his hands. “How is the garden looking?”

“Good,” Shion replied as he leaned down to untie his boots. “First frost won’t be here for a week or two, so we’ll have to cut back before then, but we have plenty of time.”

“Perfect.” Karan leant over to kiss his head, then pressed a small bun, studded with fruit, into his hand. “Here, lunch. Also, Safu said she would be coming around today-“

As if her name had summoned her, the bell hanging in front of the bakery’s main door chimed. Karan grinned, and Shion smiled too, nibbling at his bun as he left his mother to her kitchen and opened the front door.

There were still a few villagers who were willing to look past or ignore Shion’s oddities, past the vestiges of fae that clung to their house like weeds, mostly for the sake of Karan’s delectable baking. Most of these people ignored Shion along with it- out of fear or contempt, he wasn’t sure. Out of all these people, Safu was the only one who cared about him as  _ him _ , as a boy with emotions and hopes and feelings. She was his only friend, and he treasured her deeply.

Today she swept in in a brown dress, smelling of cinnamon and fallen leaves, with a brand new scarf surely knit by her grandmother for the coming cold. Shion smiled even wider as she swept him up in a hug, her boots tapping on the stone floor.

“You’re excited today,” he said once she let go of him. Safu’s eyes were sparkling, and the basket she held in the crook of her arm was full to bursting. 

“Yes, Shion- oh, I’ve gotten the best news! The School of Knowledge- you know, in the king’s city- accepted my paper!” Her good cheer was infectious. Shion took another bite of his bun.

“Really? Are you still using an alias?”

That seemed to dampen her spirits a bit. She sighed momentarily, then slid the basket off her arm. “Yes, but hopefully not for much longer. Anyway, I brought gifts! Grandmother said it would be chilly overnight, so she gave me permission to stay... if you’ve got space, of course.”

From the kitchen, Karan laughed. “We always have space for you, Safu.”

She smiled, and it was beautiful and bright. The things Safu pulled out of her basket weren't rarities, really, but for Shion- whose whole world started and ended with the wound-stick fence around the cottage he shared with his mother- they could have been. A set of charcoal drawings, done in Safu’s delicate hand, a brace of autumn beer, a pair of books with leather covers, and, the last thing she pulled from the basket, a matching scarf for Shion, in alternate colors.

He draped it around his shoulders with a twinge of regret. It was no secret that Safu’s grandmother- and Shion’s mother, to an extent- wanted him to marry Safu. She was a chance to drag himself from isolation, to become a respected member of society with a proper wife by his side. 

It would have been a lie. Shion detested seeing his dear friend as some kind of escape route, and either way, women had never truly caught his eye in the way they did other boys. It was just one of the myriad of things that made him the way he was, alone but real.

Safu uncorked the first bottle of beer, and Karan emerged from the kitchen, and as the light started to wane, Shion felt warm and safe amongst family and friends, and did not wonder what the iron might have been keeping out.

They talked long into the night, pouring over the books and emptying the bottles of their sweet late-autumn brew, made from the husks of sun-drenched barley. Shion was banking the fire as his mother excused herself to go to bed and set up Safu’s own nook to sleep in, and it was already very dark. Safu started to yawn not long after, and went up the stairs as well. Shion began to clean up their modest kitchen, lit up only by dying embers and thick panels of moonlight.

He was wiping down the main table when the iron charms, hung above every doorframe and window pain, began to rattle and shake. They were tiny things, both bought and passed down through hands over generations, their miniscule forms taking the shape of rat kings and bees and evil eyes to keep the fae out. 

At the sound of their shaking, Shion’s heart leapt to his throat, and for a moment his vision- limited as it was- was spotted white with snow. Then, over the small cacophony of clinking metal, came the low howl of a dog.

Others followed, overlapping each other in their own pack of noise, and Shion’s shoulders lost their tension. He was very alone, yes, and knew very few people, but perhaps Safu wasn’t his only friend. Not exactly.

He draped the rag around his neck. The charms shuddered as he went outside, carefully shutting the door behind him so fallen leaves did not get blown in, and went to the fence.

A sea of dogs surrounded Karan’s little cottage, standing shoulder to shoulder, a carpet of gleaming eyes and panting tongues. As Shion leaned over the fence, he leant out a hand and brushed the tops of their heads and ears; they sniffed him as they shifted from place to place in their pack. They were less a group of dogs than the essence of all dogs, losing their individuality in the joy of the whole.

There was only one who could part the dogs; they were fond of Shion, but would not have let him pass if he tried. However, a figure emerged from the shadows towards him, shifting the dogs around them like smoke. In the dark, they looked like a monster. But as the moonlight fell on their form, it revealed a whip-thin human, clad in a ragged black cape topped with fur, hair long and tangled. They met Shion at the fence, and crossed their arms.

“Dogwitch,” he smiled. “You’re a bit early. I thought your pack only cycled around every full moon.”

“We go where we please,” Dogwitch replied, absentmindedly scratching at their wrist under their cloak. “But I’m not here for fun, Shion. This isn’t a cycle.”

Shion’s eyes tightened. Dogwitch had been cycling around on a nomadic path for years, but they and their pack had been making a point to have their route intersect with his cottage at least a few times every year for ages. Dogwitch was fickle, and often didn’t show up for months at a time, and denied liking Shion in the slightest, but their presence did make him happy. Dogwitch was a taste of something beyond, of the magic that had tainted his life so severely, something Shion didn’t-  _ couldn’t _ \- admit he craved.

“Then what’s wrong?” he asked, suddenly worried. “We have space if you need to stay-“

Dogwitch flapped their hands dismissively. “No, no, it’s not that- not that I’d want to live in that little shed you call a house. I came here to warn you.”

Shion’s heart sunk even more. If Dogwitch had made a point to come early... well, they didn’t have friends, as they themself said. Only those who had earned their trust. And even those people weren’t to be protected- to each their own pack was the motto they lived by.

“Something’s coming,” Dogwitch continued, and around them, the dogs began to stir more, as if responding to their leader’s distress with flashing teeth and wild eyes. “I don’t know what it is, or what it’ll be. But before the winter solstice, someone is going to be here, and they’re going to be dangerous.”

“What do you mean?”

Just as quickly as it had arrived, Dogwitch’s concerned mood vanished, and their face drew back into its usual scowl. “Just what I said. Be careful. And you owe me for this, I hope you know. A brace of beer next cycle, and washes for everyone.”

Shion could only nod. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he let go of clenched hands, and realized that he dug tiny moons into his skin with his fingernails. His skin burned with faraway pain, on a wasppath down his skin.

Dogwitch faded into the night once more, and when Shion turned, the charms on his house shone, clinking against each other in the wind, rattling as if they would never do it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slam that mfing kudos if you’re tired of canonically nb dogloan getting misgendered in fics


	4. THE WINDWALKER

The first day after Dogwitch’s warning, Shion was on edge. His eyes darted from shadow to shadow, he flinched at every sharp noise. Karan didn’t take long to get worried, and she urged him to bed early, where he had to control his breathing and force his eyes to shut until he slept.

Eventually, however, he began to unwind, as the sun whiled by and nothing untoward happened. His days continued on as usual- slow, quiet, and lonely. Shion didn’t take Dogwitch’s words lightly, but he did, eventually, relax. The world kept turning.

Quietly, in the more lonesome moments, Shion caught himself looking to dark corners and suspicious trees not with fear, but with an eagerness he was not entirely prepared to cope with. He liked his life, and he definitely liked the world away from the grasp of winter, but young people were not meant to spend their days wandering a fenced-in cottage, and Shion was no exception. The wild called to him, somewhere deep down. It was only the memory of the Unseelie that kept him from answering.

One day, when the warning lay still in Shion’s mind, Safu made her visit, less burdened by her basket but more layered in thick coats and cloaks, a response to the first frost which had arrived last week. Her eyes had deep shadows under them, but they glittered in a way that told Shion that she was eager to share some news he wasn’t yet privy to.

Sure enough, as she shook herself of her stiffness and plucked a maple seed from her hair, she turned to Shion, grinning. “There’s someone new in town.”

“Oh? Do tell,” Shion replied, hands full of braided bread that he was setting out to replace an empty basket. Safu nodded enthusiastically, leaning on the table even as she continued to shed layers.

“He’s mysterious, and so tall- I actually met him for a bit. He arrived two days ago, just after the frost, and he’s just been wandering around ever since. At nights, he stays in the White Hind and performs for the tavern-goers.” 

“Performs?” Shion had turned to polishing glasses, setting out the heavy mugs for the dinner planned for tonight. “What, is he a bard?”

“No- Shion, he’s a  _ windwalker _ .”

He appropriately gasped. Windwalkers were a rarity in any parts, least of all here, where they were the stuff of myth. Using a distinctly human form of magic, they beckoned the very wind to their aid, able to cross great gaps and travel with astounding speed. In these lands, windwalkers were accompanied by more stories than anyone could remember, always changing like the breezes they carried. In some they were valiant heroes, in others charlatans and thieves. 

“I saw him do it- he held trinkets in the air as easily as I might open a book,” Safu continued, clearly very eager to share. “He has a cloak that’s always blowing behind him. It’s amazing. I wonder what stories he could tell? Where has he been?”

“Well, what’s his name?” Shion replied, only partially listening. Strangers with even more strange abilities blew into the village every so often, although they’d never had a windwalker in their midst before. Safu loved to carry news of any unusual traveler to his door, and though he enjoyed the gossip, it was easy to dismiss.

“Ah, he said it was Nezumi.”

A glass fell out of Shion’s slackened grasp and shattered on the floor.

“Shion!” Safu yelped nervously, darting to her feet as the thick glass splintered into glittering chunks over the hardwood. “What happened?”

“No-nothing,” Shion stammered, automatically leaning down to gather the largest shards. He tried desperately to hide how the name had snatched his breath away.

It couldn’t be him, could it? There was no way it could be. Some other stranger, a windwalker with the same alias. Unbidden, Shion remembered him; the darkness of his hair against the backdrop of a blizzard and the shine of his silver eyes, piercing and direct. The song that had brought Shion back to life with the clenching teeth of insects.

No, it couldn’t be him. But the thought nagged at him, long after Safu said her goodbyes with a concerned look in her eyes, and long after Karan came home from her day out in the village market and bustled to bed.

This night seemed deeper than many of the ones previous, as Shion silently swept up the kitchen and polished the iron charms hanging from the rafters. Underneath the collar of his loose tunic, he could feel the heavy weight of an iron chain, the links engraved with tiny prayers. 

He hadn’t worn it for years- foolish, he knew, but the charms had formed such an effective net that he had felt secure. The night of Dogwitch’s warning, however, he had pulled it out of the corner of his dresser he had tucked it into. It had been on ever since, but never seemed to warm against his skin.

The single lantern he kept lit threw a wavering, golden light against the familiar shapes of his kitchen. It cast everything in yellow panels, and glinted off the windows, hiding the outside from view. Even with its glow, however, the yawning darkness was oppressive, pushing itself against the cottage walls and whispering to Shion with thousands of tiny voices. 

He was on edge. The handle of the broom was slippery from sweat when he let go, leaning it on the edge of his table and sitting down heavily next to it. He felt drawn wire-thin tonight, heart pumping, remembering Dogwitch’s message and the snowstorm six years ago in turn. Every movement drew his gaze, every shadow loomed higher than it should.

Outside, in the dark, a bell chimed.

Shion’s heart thumped in an uncomfortable way in his chest at the sound, ripping a gasp out of him. Around the cottage, the wind picked up once more, howling, deep and lonely, swallowing him up in an ocean of air. Despite the gale, however, each and every one of the iron charms was perfectly still.

He was alone, and unbidden, he stood. Methodically, he took the lamp and threw a shawl over his shoulders from a hook near the door, feeling hollow.  _ Perhaps if I go willingly, He will spare Mother and Safu. Perhaps if I go willingly He’ll be kind when I reach Him. _

The night was just as dark and thick as it threatened at the windows, and Shion’s lantern was the only spot of light visible, spare the twinkling canopy of stars overhead. Leaves crunched under his feet as he walked forwards, the wind bellowing its mightiest, yet the autumn air was still around his body.

And then he saw him. At the end of the yard, where the woven-twig gate was gaping ajar, in a patch of inky darkness. Shion lifted the lamp, and it revealed his face.

Silver eyes gleamed bright in the gloom.

“Nezumi,” he breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm uploading this earlier than usual because i have a family event going on the rest of the day. anyway whoa who's that mysterious visitor who showed up to shion's door????? will we ever truly know


	5. LONG BEFORE THE SPRING

_ He looks different _ , Shion thought as he stared at the familiar face.

It wasn’t too much of a difference, at least, not to him. He had lost the remaining baby fat of youth, his hair longer and his stance far more casual. His handsome face was marred with a deep scar on the cheek, and leaned over Shion, their height difference obvious now that they were both grown. A long cloak lay around his shoulders, tattered at the edges, obviously the one Safu had been referring to earlier.

However, to Shion, it was easy to see the boy he met in the man he now faced. Nezumi still kept the sharpness Shion remembered about him, all languid grace and inner tension, a fully-grown predator. But looking at him, Shion felt nothing but safe. 

“It is you,” he continued, stepping closer and leaning from side to side in order to get a better look with his good eye. Nezumi’s gaze followed him easily. 

“Glad to see that you remembered my face,” Nezumi replied. “You look the same as you did, though.” 

The wind had died down now, and the mid-autumn chill began to nip at Shion’s skin again. He shivered briefly. “I- Won’t you come inside?”

Nezumi said nothing, but he followed Shion in, ducking his head slightly under the doorframe. He took in Shion’s home, looking decidedly unimpressed, as his host set his lantern down and distantly began to rummage around for the half-empty bottle of wine he knew was kept in the utensil cabinet.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Shion finally broke the silence, setting down two glasses of wine and sitting to gulp half of his at once. Nezumi did not follow, still standing, the edges of his cloak blowing slightly in a nonexistent breeze.

“I didn’t think so either.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

The wine soured in Shion’s throat, but he took peace in the familiar taste anyway, letting it ground him. Under its tang, he finally managed to look Nezumi in the eyes again, an unnamed emotion rising in him at the bitingly familiar color. “Why are you here? When did you become a windwalker? Why me?”

“You already know why you,” Nezumi replied, finally sitting across from him. “And I still have my secrets in some ways.”

“Then why are you here, now?”

Nezumi’s long fingers traced a pattern in the table’s wood grain. “I can’t say.”

“I don’t believe you.”

His gaze sharpened on Shion, who had squared his jaw and frowned. “What?”

“I said, I don’t believe you. I’ve only recently got a warning from a friend that danger approaches before the solstice, and now you’re here, with no warning or explanation. I don’t believe it.”

Nezumi scoffed, a sardonic smile suddenly gracing his features. “Well, I’m sorry to offend, your Majesty, but it’s the truth. I was compelled to come here by fate, nothing more, and I’m no liar.”

Shion closed his eyes and took another, more languid sip of the wine. “...fine. But what do you want here? Or... with me?”

“Here? I don’t know.” Nezumi left the other question unanswered. Silence fell between them again, thick and unbreakable. The wine once again soured on Shion’s tongue.

“Do you have anywhere to stay?”

“I sleep outdoors.”

Shion immediately shook his head. “Nonsense. I’ll pull out the blankets and set you up in the kitchen, in front of the fire. You’ll frighten my mother, but I’ll explain.”

And just like that, Nezumi came back into Shion’s life, just as suddenly as he’d entered it the first time.

The first few days were strange, of course. Karan was indeed frightened by the man sleeping in her kitchen, but an hour-long explanation from her son managed to quell the worst of her concerns. Nezumi was cagey, and for a while seemed more eager to avoid the family entirely by slipping away into the woods during the day, but Shion eventually put his foot down and insisted that he at least help out in exchange for food and board.

They quickly found out that Nezumi was utterly terrible at baking, although he could whip up a passable stew. Karan quickly reassigned him to collect the berries and herbs that Shion used to gather, and he proved much more handy there. Soon, he was single-handedly collecting the days’ ingredients in no time at all.

Safu came by more than once, surprised the first time and bitingly curious the next. She needled Nezumi with dozens of questions, each of which he gave only a half-answer to before skirting around the next one. He took great delight in the books she brought, however- Shion caught the way his eyes twinkled whenever Safu pulled out another twine-bound stack of classics. Soon, he’d collected a small hoard of his own.

It was one purple evening when Shion finally managed to catch one of Nezumi’s secrets. He was carrying out a stack of empty sacks, intending to hang them up on a clothesline so that the flour residue could be blown out. It was a gentle evening, the air just cold enough for his breath to puff in plumes of vapor. He exhaled and watched the cloud fade as he snapped a sack out.

“Romeo, O Romeo, wherefore art thou...”

The voice caught his attention immediately, coming from around the corner of the cottage, where the brambles were. Shion set down his armful and crept along the wall, carefully turning to see the speaker.

Nezumi stood on a crate, arm extended, a book in his other hand. The title was barely legible from where Shion stood-  _ Twelve Great Plays of Our Times _ . His cloak billowed out behind him, graceful in its curves, and the waning sunlight caught the sweep of Nezumi’s chin and the glitter of his eyes.

But his  _ voice-  _ it was his voice that held Shion entranced, rich and full, enunciating each sentence clearly and breathing life into every word. Nezumi hadn’t yet noticed his audience, and continued, lost in his own world.

“Deny thy father and refuse thy name...”

Shion didn’t notice that he had drifted off while listening to Nezumi recite until his voice stopped. Startled, he looked up to see his performer staring at him out of the corner of his eyes, inspecting his face as carefully as one might an elaborate portrait.

Once satisfied that Shion was watching properly, however, he continued. “What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot nor arm nor face nor any other part belonging to a man...”

Shion watched with rapt attention until Nezumi snapped his book shut at the end of his monologue and turned to face him, then gave a deep and exaggerated bow. Caught off guard again, Shion politely clapped.

“I don’t mind an audience, your Majesty,” Nezumi said as he passed Shion on his way back inside. He smelled of basil and rainstorms. “But I do like to know when they arrive.”

Before he could disappear, however, Shion finally managed to loosen his tongue enough to speak. “Nezumi- wait.”

He stopped, but didn’t back up.

“You- it was beautiful. The monologue.”

Nezumi’s eyes darted up and down his form, but he didn’t answer. Shion swallowed.

“Um, if you ever want to perform for an audience again- I’d want to hear it. If you want to.”

The door opened and shut, leaving Shion standing alone in his yard. But he could have sworn that just before Nezumi disappeared inside the cottage, a small smile was on his face.

Shion didn’t see Nezumi for the rest of the day, no matter where he looked. That happened sometimes, but he’d always be back in the morning, taking advantage of the kettle of tea Karan brewed before the sun rose. So Shion sighed, finished his chores for the day, and eventually tucked himself under his covers.

He was on the edge of sleep when a noise- faint, but present- roused him. A creak of hinges, footsteps on boards-  _ Someone is in my room. _

Shion stiffened, barely daring to breathe, as whoever-it-was got closer. A shuffle of fabric and a faint thump, right next to his bed, and then-

“O serpent heart hid with a flowering face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?...”

Nezumi’s whispers filled the room and soothed Shion’s bones, relaxing him back into the covers. He smiled, and hoped his actor could see it.

The words lulled him to sleep, eventually. When he woke, Nezumi was gone, but next to his bed lay the dog-eared copy of  _ Twelve Great Plays of Our Times. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am aware that the suggested time period here absolutely does not match up with the writing of romeo and juliet, but consider: i don’t care


	6. THE FROSTBITE’S CLAIM

Slowly, Shion got used to living with Nezumi. After he recited the monologue to him in bed, listening to him perform quickly became one of Shion’s favorite things to do, and Nezumi seemed to take great delight in doing so for him. He’d trace Shion’s path through the house and yard, holding a book, words filling the empty space between them as he read a chunk of whichever play or prose had caught his fancy. Sometimes, he’d even read to Karan at dinner as well.

As Nezumi’s presence became warm and familiar, if Shion noticed how his heart fluttered when he was around, he ignored it. After all, of course he felt strongly about the other man. He’d saved his life. It was only natural.

One day, Nezumi noticed that Shion never left the cottage property. He refrained from reciting that day, still following Shion with an air of detached disdain. When he finally faced him about it, Nezumi decided to take the route he always did: bitingly honest.

“You never go outside, and it’s dull,” he complained, leaning on the fence. Shion huffed, his breath fogging up the air between them. “What, you think you’ll learn about the world from behind a fence?”

“You know why I can’t leave,” Shion replied. They avoided directly talking about the experience they’d had. Words had power, especially ones to do with faeries. “The iron keeps me safe.”

“You’re wearing that,” was Nezumi’s reply, along with a vague gesture at the chain around Shion’s throat. “It’ll do as good a job as these dinky charms.”

“Still, it’s better for me to be in here.”

Nezumi fell silent for a while. Shion huffed internally and continued going about his business. By the time he spoke up again, all but one log in the firewood pile had been split into quarters and neatly stacked up against the back door.

“You don’t have to deny yourself something you want,” Nezumi said as Shion dragged the last log onto the chopping block. A splinter dug into the meat of his hand, and he stopped to pull it out as he avoided Nezumi’s iron gaze.

“You don’t know what I want,” Shion replied, after the splinter, tipped with red, slid from his skin. “You don’t even know that I’m denying myself anything.”

And then he was there, in Shion’s face, standing not an inch from him. His cloak billowed around the both of them, cupping them together. He smelled of freshness, of a spring wind that blew away the cold and ruffled the surface of water as it went.

“Don’t lie to me,” he murmured. “It ill becomes you, Shion. You’re no liar. You just have to step through.”

Nezmi turned heel and left, through the back gate. It swung on its unoiled hinges, its weave glittering with a tiny charm of a honeycomb. Shion watched, an emotion he couldn’t place rising in his throat, as Nezumi kept walking, until he disappeared into the foliage of the strand of woods, just outside the fence.

This was his last chore. After he stacked this one, he’d have nothing else to do the rest of the day but watch the clouds roll by and the leaves blow in the wind...

Hurriedly, Shion carelessly split the log in two and put down his axe, wiping his hands. He didn’t even close the gate behind him as he went.

The strand of trees leading into the deep woods were sparse, and normally a great mass of green, but in autumn they lit up in shades of firey reds and yellows. Fallen leaves carpeted the ground, crunching under Shion’s feet, dappled brighter in the beams of sunlight that broke through the canopy. For anyone else, they might have gotten lost, but Shion felt rejuvenated to be among them. 

Squirrels leaped from branch to branch and birds peered at him from bushes as he passed, heart lightening with every step. It was a great cathedral of forest, untouched by man, moss scribing its own patterns into bark and spiders weaving delicate webs between twigs. The world was bright and beautiful and here, all along, and Shion had been away for so long.

It didn’t take long for the trees to thin again, revealing a large stream cutting through the forest, running deep into its heart. The babbling water was dotted by dozens of leaves, blown in by the wind to travel on its surface. On the far bank, a family of deer raised their heads from drinking and bounded away.

It was here that Shion found him again, cross-legged in a bare patch of dirt, sunlight pouring on his upturned face. Nezumi didn’t flinch as he approached, only opening his eyes when Shion sat next to him, drinking in the sight.

“Well, your Majesty?”

“It’s beautiful.” Shion looked up at the sea of amber and gold ahead, and knew he meant it- and then, in a sudden fit of confidence; “and so are you.”

Nothing was said between them for a while. Birdsong filled the empty space, the crackle of falling leaves and the faint babbling of the stream. Shion drew up inside himself. He’d made a mistake.

Then Nezumi sighed, and ran a hand over his face. When he was done, he did not turn, but his gaze was on Shion anyhow.

“You torment me, you know,”

A hand over Shion’s, warm and elegant.

“You torment me in every thought, waking or no. No matter how far I went, I could not help but dream of you.”

Their fingers intertwined, slotting together perfectly. Like they were always meant to be a pair.

“Come to my room tonight,” Shion whispered. “Lie with me.”

“Aren’t you forward.”

The double meaning reared its head a little too late for Shion, who instantly flushed red. He was sure it made his waspscar stand out even painfully more, but Nezumi just laughed, tenderly, and placed his other hand on his cheek.

“I’ll come. I’ll be there and I’ll sing for you.”

His song from long ago still echoed in Shion’s head, even now. He’d heard Nezumi perform since, but not _sing_ , and the prospect kindled a spot of warmth in his heart, one of uplifting joy. “I’d like that.”

Before they could continue, however, Karan’s voice called from beyond the trees, obviously terrified at the disappearance of her son. Shion hurriedly stood, and Nezumi stood with him, but when he headed towards her, Nezumi stayed.

He looked back, only once, to see the same small smile on Nezumi’s face. “I’ll be there,” he said, just loud enough for Shion to hear. He knew it was the truth.

Karan was, sure enough, panicked when he returned, but not to the point of despair. She gave him a thorough scolding- _“Mother, I’m not a child, I’m fine”-_ but did not punish him further, because he was, in fact, no longer a child. Nezumi did not emerge from the woods the rest of the day, but Shion could barely contain his excitement. When dinner was finished, he rushed to bed almost immediately, nearly tripping himself up in his haste.

However, he really didn’t need to. By the time he heard his bedroom door creak open, Shion was already half-asleep, and blearily registered the approaching footsteps. It was only when a hand sunk down his straw-filled mattress that he started awake.

“It’s me,” Nezumi whispered, near enough to make Shion shiver with the promise of his closeness. “You all right?”

In response, Shion wriggled back, and held open the blanket for him. There was a faint noise that could be an amused chuckle, and then he was _there_ , warm and heavy and smelling like fresh air. Shion wanted to bury himself in him.

It was Nezumi’s voice that soothed Shion to sleep, singing of a godly bed under faraway trees. He washed over Shion, the scent and weight and heat of him, their hands intertwined under the blankets. He was warmer than he’d ever been, ever since his hair went white. There was always a little bit of snow in his bones since then, but now it dissolved into snowmelt in his veins, because Nezumi was _there_.

Which was why it was so startling when he woke up alone.

He wasn’t sure what woke him up until he heard the rattling of dozens of tiny charms, vibrating so rapidly that he could practically hear them falling apart. For a second, Shion thought it was Dogwitch, arriving on another early cycle, but then one of the charms hanging from his bedroom rafters fell and shattered on the floor. Dogwitch could never do that, no matter how soaked in magic they were.

Then he felt the cold, and he knew.

Shion got up, numbness seeping into his bones, panic trapped and fluttering under his ribcage. When he stood, hundreds of tiny faces peering in through his window bared sharp teeth, their mouths gaping wider than any human could. They were laughing at him. He knew they were.

There was a slick trail of ice leading from his bed. He followed it, littered with a trail of broken iron charms. The chain on his own throat was like ice already, tightening until, by the time he reached the open door, it was as heavy and cold as a stone collar. Fingers of snow had blown into his cottage, creeping in whatever crack and crevice they could. 

Shion stepped into a blizzard when he left his house. Last night, the sky had been clear, the moon heavy and fat amongst the stars- but now it was all but invisible under a thick coat of ice. His cottage disappeared in it only a few steps away from the front door, and once again he was scared and alone in the cold, a lost little boy in a winter storm.

And as soon as it became featureless, the snow in front of him suddenly smoothed, and he saw what he had been fearing for so long. 

The Winter King loomed in His snow, white-marble eyes staring down at Shion, pinning him in place. His mere presence was enough to make Shion’s knees tremble and fear rise in his throat, pressing against the choking chain. In one hand He held His stone rings, with His Children splayed behind Him, each more baleful than the last. They were a disturbing mirror of the features Shion himself saw every time he caught his reflection: white hair, blood-red eyes. They looked at him with hatred.

In His other hand, He pressed His palm to Nezumi’s forehead, and Shion’s legs finally gave out. He collapsed in the snow, eyes wide, words wrenched out of him by utter misery.

“ _Nezumi_...”

The Winter King let him watch as Nezumi’s sharp-silver eyes went red, as his night-black hair paled to white. He let him watch as He enclosed Nezumi’s throat in a frostbitten stone ring, as He cast off his windwalker’s cloak to the ground, where it lay like a pool of ink on the drifts. He let him, and Shion could do nothing but watch, as Nezumi met his gaze, eyes flat and empty.

The King spoke like cracking ice floes, like sharp fjords in faraway mountains. Shion couldn’t look Him in the eyes- He was too bright. “ _I have returned for what is mine by right, lost newling.”_

Shion had feared the Winter King for years, and even before. Horror of Him was etched into his very blood. But looking at Nezumi, his heart threatened to shatter.

“You can’t,” he whispered, and knew that he was heard. Every snowflake was an ear for their King. “We just found each other. You can’t-“

“ _I can, newling.”_ His voice was hard and sure. No emotion leached through it. “ _You are no longer mine, but he belongs to me. Human magic fails eventually, as it always does. He is to be Unseelie when the year is up._ ”

Shion was crying, and he only noticed when the tears froze on his cheeks. His scar burned in the cold, but he barely felt it. “But- we escaped, we’re free-“

And then the Winter King was standing in front of Shion, freezing him solid, inside and out. His eyes ached in the presence of His harsh light, but he could see the feline head, crusted with ice, and the spun-frost crown that grew from His brow and tore into the air above with frozen teeth. Ermine squirmed around each other in His coat, thousands of tiny black eyes peering, watching, flowing into each other in a sea of white fur.

He did not lean down, but Shion could smell His breath anyway, of freezing cold glaciers, tainted with flesh, trapping animals in their depths for untold millennia.

“ _He would have been free, if not for you, newling. And now he is mine, and upon the Solstice, he becomes Frost Court.”_

He left Shion kneeling in the snow, hollowed-out and shivering. The last thing he saw was Nezumi, chained up with the Children, eyes even emptier than theirs. He looked like he belonged there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we all knew this was coming! dogwitch doesn’t lie


	7. THREE GIFTS FOR THE ROAD

“Shion?  _ Shion!  _ God, please, answer me...”

When Shion came to, it was to someone holding his shoulders, shaking him desperately. When he blinked and looked up, they gasped in relief, flinging their arms around him.

“Oh, Shion,” Karan cried, her face tear-stained and skirt muddied. “Oh, I thought you would never respond- what happened, please, darling, I found you out here! All the charms are broken, and I feared the worst- Are you hurt?”

The blizzard that the King had brought with him was all but disappeared since last night, with only small drifts of snow bunched up in shadows, slowly melting in the watery morning sun. Shion was kneeling in a thick patch of mud, staining his pants a deep black. Their front gate was askew on broken hinges.

It took a long time for words to return to him, for reality to snap back into place, but once it did, Shion suddenly returned Karan’s embrace just as strongly, gripping her clothes nearly hard enough to tear. Tears sprung up sharply, his eyes hot and heart aching. 

“Mother,” he whimpered. “Mother, the- He...”

“Don’t hurt yourself, darling-“

“ _ He took Nezumi _ ,” Shion gasped, like the admission was impossible for him to even consider. “He took him... away from me...”

His vision went blurry again for a while, and Shion was only half-aware through his tears that Karan had gently led him inside and wrapped him in a blanket, pushing a warm mug of tea in his hands. The only part of him that felt warm was his scar. When he looked down at his hands, they were tinged blue around the fingernails.

He stayed there for a long time, letting the mug leach heat into his shivering bones, and he thought. He thought of impossible things and long journeys and the way that the stone collar had bitten into the fragile flesh of Nezumi’s throat. And while he thought of those things, he also began- tentatively- to think of a plan.

_ And now he is mine, and upon Solstice, he becomes Frost Court _ .

The Winter Solstice was not yet here.

And that meant Nezumi was still human.

Shion stood, and let the blanket slip from his shoulders. It felt too far away to pick up, so he didn’t try. Karan made a worried noise, but he didn’t fully hear it.

Up to his room. He didn’t pack much- only changed his clothes, then stuffed a bar of soap, a comb and a set of rougher blankets into his old leather knapsack. He pulled on his winter boots slowly, laced them up with warmer fingers, and went back downstairs.

Karan was already waiting for him, gripping the edge of her foodstained apron in a way that Shion knew meant she was scared. On the table behind her was a small package, wrapped up in cloth.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question, but Shion nodded anyway.

“I have to, mother, but I’ll be back.” Smiling was hard, but he tried, and it took a tiny bit of the edge off Karan’s gaze. “I promise.”

“I know you will,” she said softly, then picked up the package and pressed it into his hands. “Here. You’ll need to eat.”

When he unwrapped it, Shion was met with a bundle overflowing with bread, dried meat and cheese, all hearty enough to keep him going for days. At the top was something special, however- two slices of Karan’s famous cherry cake, in crinkled paper they kept especially for the recipe.

Shion hugged her, and tried to keep himself from crying again; it was hard enough to see with only one eye. He tried to breathe her in: her scent of flour and scrubbed wood and brambles. Her scent of home.

_ I will come back, _ he thought as he left, and tried not to look back at her face through the window.  _ This is not the last time I will see my home again. _

However, as he gingerly closed the broken gate behind him and turned to head down the road away from the village, he was stopped again. “ _ Shion!  _ Is that you? Wait!”

Safu ran down the path towards him, her boots squishing in the mud, eyes wide. She only managed to avoid crashing into him at the last moment. “Shion, where- how- where are you  _ going?  _ A blizzard rolled in last night, and Grandmother swears it must have been the Folk-“

“He was here, Safu,” Shion mumured, rendering her silent. “He was here, and He took Nezumi. I have until the solstice.”

Safu’s hand crept to her mouth, her eyes wide with horror. “Oh- oh, Shion, I’m so sorry, but- but you can’t go! It’s too dangerous!”

“No one else can. You know what happened to me, you know that He can’t touch me. I’m the only one who has a chance of getting him back.”

“He may not be able to claim you, but He can still kill you, Shion!” Much to his surprise, there were tears in her eyes when he finally met her gaze. “You shouldn’t!”

“It has to be me.”

She knew she had lost, but she still kept Shion there for a good amount of time, neither looking the other in the eyes. They just stood, in silence, fists clenched and eyes stinging with tears. Shion knew that if he admitted the truth- that he didn’t want to go, that he wanted to huddle up inside with her and his mother until he could never feel cold again- he’d never have the strength to leave. So he stayed silent.

Eventually, Safu spoke once more. “How will you get home?”

It wasn’t a question that Shion expected, and he blinked in surprise. “Huh? Well... er.”

“Here. Take this.” She pulled something out of her dress pocket, and slipped it into his fingers, something warm and smooth. When he looked at it, it was a compass, the bottom engraved with a rose and the needle inside dutifully swinging to the north. Its edges were bright, but the rest of the metal was tarnished with age.

“Grandmother said that it always led Grandfather home, before he passed. Now I hope it’ll do the same for you. Just... please.”

He would never turn her down. He slipped it into his own pocket, and leaned forward to kiss her on the brow. Her face was drawn tight with misery.

“I will see you again, Safu. I promise.” It was the same kind of promise that he made to his mother-  _ This is not the last time. _

He had to leave her there, looking up at the sky like it offered answers, cast in overcast sunlight. Shion took one last long, long look at the place he was born, and then turned his back to it, and did not look again.

It didn’t take long for the woods behind Shion’s house to grow along the tiny dirt road that led away from the village, to swallow up the horizon and loom high and half-barren in the autumn breeze. Carpets of red and gold leaves blanketed the ground, covering the road at points, and Shion had to drag his feet through them to see the faint trail again. 

The sky was getting darker with an oncoming storm when Shion heard the first howl, far-away and bouncing through the trees. The first dogs came only minutes later, haunches stained with mud and tongues lolling hot and pink from their jaws. They were of all shapes and sizes, some big enough to be wolves, others small and ragged and nipping at the heels of their larger packmates. A few nosed Shion’s hands, but he ignored them.

Only part of Dogwitch’s huge pack followed them when they finally appeared, slipping between the tree trunks and parting the dogs around them to reach Shion in their center. Their long cloak seemed darker than normal, hiding their body completely, and once they reached him, they tilted their head.

“Didn’t I warn you? Now look where you’ve gotten yourself. If you had any sense, you’d turn around while the road still leads you back.”

“I can’t do that. You know I can’t.” It was easier to talk to Dogwitch, somehow- Shion had nothing to hide from them. Slowly, the panic that his shock had been keeping back crept in, and Shion dug his fingers into his arms, breath unexpectedly shallow in his lungs. “I- I don’t even know where to go, an- and- He’ll spear me in two the moment He sees me, Dogwitch, shatter my bones into snowflakes-“

It was only a sudden sharp rap on the top of his head that stopped Shion’s nervous tirade. “You stop that! Do you want to rescue your beloved? Because rambling won’t get you any closer to that boy of yours.”

“You’re right,” Shion mumbled, unwilling to say that he actually wanted to keep talking so he wouldn’t have to think too hard about what he was doing. Dogwitch sighed heavily.

“I have gifts for you. Well, one gift, and one missing object that should be returned. I’m counting on you to get it back.” When Shion looked up, Dogwitch was brandishing two things: a bundle of enormous brown-and-white feathers, and a familiar ragged black cloak, swaying in the wind.

He took the feathers first, stuffing them into his knapsack, next to the bundle of food. The cloak he took from their hands more reverently, bringing it up to his face to catch the faded fresh-air scent of Nezumi on the fabric. It felt like spider silk in his hands, breeze-thin and floaty, like if he let it go it would slip away in the wind. When he slung it over his shoulders, a tiny silver clasp in the form of a coiled rat revealed itself at the garments’ throat.

“Windwalkers’ cloaks,” Dogwitch scoffed, but Shion caught the sparkle of approval in their eyes. “Unreliable things. Still, missing things should be returned, and it might help you.”

“Dogwitch, th-“

Their spindly hand instantly shot up to stop Shion in his tracks. “No, no, I don’t want thanks. You can pay me back with two full cycles of washes when you return. But this bit of advice is free- walk North until you see the Owl’s Tree, and listen to her woes.”

Shion nodded, warmth rising under the comfortable embrace of Nezumi’s cloak, and pulled out the compass. “You’ve done much for me.”

“Don’t push it, or I’ll make it three cycles.”

But they still watched him go, turning off the human path to follow North.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i bought pokemon on friday and, thusly, totally forgot to upload this yesterday. whoops! sorry


	8. QUILL AND INK

The storm didn’t take long to break, blowing with a frenzy that matched the panic in Shion’s soul. Branches abovehead whipped around frantically, snapping off on each other, creating a grim crackle that could barely be heard above the storm. Here, Nezumi saved him once again- his cloak was warm and seemed to fend off even the nastiest of gusts. Shion found himself huddling in it more the longer he walked.

In those miserable conditions, it was a miracle that he spotted the first owl when he did. It was perched in the hollow of an ancient lightning-struck tree, and turned its enormous eyes on him as he passed, tilting its pale head. Shion shivered under its gaze, but continued, following the wobbling point of Safu’s compass.

Soon, he spotted another pair of eyes, and another, and another. The owls multiplied, until it seemed that there was one perched on every branch, blinking away the rain. They were both numerous and diverse; Shion saw rows of tiny owls barely bigger than his hand, and then enormous horned ones just above, and every possible variety in between. 

The wind was still howling mightily when the owl-laden trees began to thin, and Shion stepped into an unexpectedly calm spot in the storm. The autumn leaves had not stopped rustling, but he was suddenly facing the biggest tree he had ever seen.

It was utterly huge, bigger than his cottage and even the area of its fence, its titanic trunk pockmarked and twisted in on itself. Despite its massive girth, however, it was wider than it was tall, spreading out wide to lay a carpet of tangled roots over the earth. Its branches formed an impenetrable canopy above, and perched on every single branch were rows and rows of yet more owls, each watching him unblinkingly.

There was only one path through the thick roots of the tree, which he was helpfully facing. At the end of that twisted path was an open entryway, seemingly grown out of the wood itself and emitting a slice of warm, lamp-like light. That light also escaped from dozens of holes in the tree’s surface, seemingly on every side of the bark, with many of them being used as entrances for flying owls. Their wings were completely silent as Shion gathered his courage and approached the open entrance.

Courtesy was a virtue, especially when dealing with a faerie, so Shion slipped the iron chain over his head and stood awkwardly just before the door. From here, he could hear the muttering of what was inside much more easily: a vaguely high-pitched voice, nearly frantic with some unnamed worry, listing off what sounded to be types of cloud formations, accompanied by a rhythmic scratching.

“May I come in, Good Neighbor?” Shion asked, trying his best to keep his voice steady. The muttering, which seemed to come from a huge lump of brown and white feathers in the middle of the tree’s singular room, did not stop. Owls watched from the windows.

“May I come in, Good Neighbor?” Shion repeated, raising his voice. At that, the muttering finally stopped- although the scratching did not- and the lump twisted its head around, without moving its body, to look at Shion.

He was suddenly facing a thing which he could not place- an owl who looked like a woman, or a woman who looked like an owl? It was impossible to tell, as her enormous eyes scanned Shion from head to toe, dark bags under each. Though the rest of her body was covered by a thick layer of feathers, her head was unexpectedly bare, with only a few tiny stragglers left behind, as if plucked.

“What? Yes, yes, come in- why out there in the cold? Young man, lost in storm, looking for something- Windwalker’s cloak...” Her head swiveled back around, and the scratching began anew. Shion could now see that she was writing something with a quill on a long, long sheet of paper, so extended that it spilled off the edge of her desk and curled in on itself in great piles. Every so often, an owl would swoop down, land on her shoulders, and lean into her ear, and she would nod. Broken quills littered the ground around her feet.

Shion watched her scribble away for a few minutes more, feeling distinctly awkward. The wind continued to howl outside, and he finally broke when the edge of Nezumi’s cloak fluttered in a breeze from the outside. “Good Neighbor, I need your help.”

“Help?” The faerie’s head swiveled just enough that Shion could see a single massive eye. “I’m busy. Need to write this down, keep it safe- a broken man fifty miles from the nearest port with only a bottle to keep him company-“

“I’m looking for someone,” Shion cried before she could get caught up again. “I need to get to the Frost Court before the winter solstice.”

The eye’s pupil contracted in some unnamed emotion. “The Frost Court? Domain of the Unseelie, Hall of the Winter King, Land of Cold and Snows? Humans don’t go to the Frost Court, young man. It comes to them. Chains of stone and frostbite-“

“It has already come to me twice, Good Neighbor, and it has taken someone I care about on the second. I was told to come to you.”

“Not a place for lovestruck young men,” she said, and, seemingly satisfied, swiveled her head back. “The average range of the red deer-“

But as Shion watched, despair creeping up his throat, the faerie reached up to scratch her head. Her hands were less hands and looked more similar to an owl’s talons, and when she absentmindedly pawed at the bare skin, it almost immediately drew blood. She yelped, rearing back from her work and dripping silver from her forehead. “Damn it all! Wherever did my feathers go?”

With a shock of embarrassment-  _ how did I not remember sooner! _ \- Shion recalled Dogwitch’s gift, and immediately began to rustle through hs pack, pulling out the bundle of brown-white feathers from where it had been stuffed in the corner. “Thi- this is for you, Good Neighbor.”

The eye crept around her head again, and when the faerie saw the feathers, the rest of her face followed. She lit up, and Shion obediently placed the bundle into the proffered talon, letting her unravel the twine from them with practiced claws.

As she placed and arranged the bundle of loose feathers over her scalp, they seemed to sink into her skin, smoothing over and flattening as if they had grown there all on their own. Clearly satisfied with her new head, she took to running her claws through it with glee, quickly making it obvious that the habit was the culprit of her baldness in the first place.

“Young man,” she said, and Shion started. It was the first time she fully looked at him, with her whole body in his direction. “You wanted something from me? Directions?”

“Yes,” Shion replied. “I need to be at the Frost Court before the solstice.”

“That is very foolish of you,” she warned, shaking a finger at him. “Are you sure that’s where you’d like to go? I have directions to everywhere in the world, you know. You could just as easily have my help going somewhere nice, a kind young man like you.”

“Apologies, Good Neighbor, but I must insist. There is someone there who needs me.”

“So be it.” An owl, which beforehand had been roosting in one of the trees’ many portals to the outside, suddenly took wing and spiraled down, landing delicately on the faerie’s outstretched arm. It was as white as snow, covered in hundreds of tiny black spots, and looked at Shion with wide, curious yellow eyes.

“They know the way to the Frost Court by heart,” she said, and extended her arm towards Shion. Tentatively, he reached out his own, and the owl lifted up to land on his wrist, talons digging into his skin underneath. They drew blood, but he bit his lip to stop from twitching. “They will guide you there, but can do no more- the Winter King does not let little owls into His court, even the ones of the Owl Scribe!” 

“Thank you,” Shion replied, eyes locked with the owl on his arm. They stared back, as if studying him, but there was no malice in their gaze. He hoped that he had passed whatever merits they were clearly judging him on.

“Go, young man. It is a long way to walk, and I have much work to get done.” The Owl Scribe turned again, and it took only seconds for her scribbling to start anew. “A standardized system of mathematics was developed in-“

Hers was the only pair of eyes that did not follow as Shion left, owl on his arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theres a very real chance that the next chapter will be late- this is the last prewritten one! however, i’ll try and get it up on time.

**Author's Note:**

> this one will be spottily written- there are a couple prewritten chapters, but we’ll see how it goes! please enjoy this needlessly elaborate fairy tale au.
> 
> as usual, check me out at @rainphee on [tumblr](https://rainphee.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/rainphee)! i'd love to hear from you.


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